Matt Lewis: Mike Murphy On The GOP Train Wreck

"Another week, another political dumpster fire.

This time, I sat down with my old pal Mike Murphy — famed Republican strategist, co-host of Hacks on Tap, and one of the few people who can talk politics without immediately spiraling into an existential crisis.

Trump’s "Blind Chimp with a Chainsaw" Strategy

I kicked things off by asking Mike a question that has been on my mind a lot lately: What the hell is Trump doing? His big moves — like tariffs — are about as popular as food poisoning. Is there some kind of strategy here, or is this just another episode of The Apprentice: Apocalypse Edition?

Mike didn’t sugarcoat it: Trump’s entire political playbook is a loop. Win as the wrecking ball, flop as an actual president, lose, then win again by pointing at the mess he made and blaming someone else. It’s not governing — it’s demolition derby politics.

The problem this time? The economy was Trump’s only real selling point. Voters bought the whole fire Biden, bring back the good times pitch. Now he’s back, and instead of keeping the wheels on, he’s careening down the highway with a megaphone, ranting about revenge and handing the keys to Elon Musk and a bunch of interns with names like “Big Balls.”

Mike summed it up with an image that’s both hilarious and terrifying: It’s like “a blind chimp with a chainsaw.”

Americans like the idea of cutting government waste — until they realize the waste is their benefits, their jobs, and, oh yeah, their entire economy.

The tariffs alone are a suicide note to Trump’s own voters. And that’s before we get to the cabinet full of Fox News rejects, the DOJ turned into a personal hit squad, and the foreign policy strategy that might as well be dictated straight from the Kremlin.

Mike’s verdict? “It’s like the Chinese Communist Party and super Democratic partisans got together and built Trump in a laboratory to blow the midterm elections…

Source:Matt Lewis talking to longtime Republican political strategist Mike Murphy about guess who ...

From Matt Lewis

"Mike Murphy, infuriated Republican strategist and co-host of the "Hacks on Tap" podcast,  joins Matt Lewis to unpack Donald Trump’s latest moves — tariffs that could spike prices, a chaotic cabinet filled with Fox News rejects, and a revenge-driven agenda that’s alienating voters. 

From Elon Musk’s government meddling to a potential midterm disaster for the GOP,  Murphy breaks down the method (or is it madness?) behind Trump’s endgame. 

Plus, Murphy offers some solid advice for Democrats: Ditch the woke lectures, focus on the economy, and spotlight rising stars to flip the House in 2026." 

From Matt Lewis

I have a few responses here: 

The New Democrat has been posting a lot lately... really since February in response to James Carville New York Times essay about how Democrats should act as the opposition. Which included a response to fellow blogger Leigh McGowan about the same issue, the President's State of the Union, the government funding bill, etc. And a lot of what we were talking about was how the militant left-wing of the Democratic Party has responded to the Democratic leadership about this, that, the other thing, and I'm sure something else after that. So if you read all of that, you might believe that the administration runs the asylum, not the inmates. But the Republican Party is the opposite of that, which is really what this is about. 

To state the obvious: America is not Europe as far as how its political system operates. Germany (for example) has a center-right, as well as a center-left party, (by European standards) but they have smaller parties in their Parliament that are way to the right and left of the 2 major political parties there: the Conservative Party and the Social Democratic Party. 

America is very different from Germany and the rest of the Europe in this sense. Yes, we have a Libertarian Party, a socialist Green Party, but not so much a far-right party anymore, because most, if not all those folks are now MAGA Republicans. But instead of having a multi-party political system in our government, its really just the Republican Party thats now dominated by these MAGA activists, (who in a perfect world, would be halfway around the world from any serious conservative party) and what's left of the Goldwater-Reagan Conservative Republicans, and a few Northeastern Progressives in Maine and perhaps in other places. 

And the Democratic Party still has those JFK Liberals and Roosevelt Progressives, but it has ideological bothers and sisters (if not ideological twins) of the Green Party as well as far as what those folks believe in ideologically and culturally. And that includes people who think communism is cool and other positions that could get anyone committed to any political asylum for the rest of your life. 

And all of this gets to 1 of Mike Murphy's original points here. Matt Lewis asked Murphy is: "Is there a method to Donald Trump's madness here?" And Murphy's answer was essentially "no" and he explained why. I would've asked: "Is there a madness to Donald Trump's method?' 

The Donald Trump Administration is essentially trying to destroy the American, liberal democratic, form of government, and replace it with his own personal oligarchy. And he and Elon Musk don't give a damn who gets hurt in the process, including the Republican Party. Well, that's sort of what the Democratic Left wants to do with the Democratic Party right now and perhaps our form of government down the line. (If Hell ever gets a month's worth of snow at the same time) 

But 1 major difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is the inmates run the asylum in the Republican Party. Whatever you think of Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, etc... they're not politically crazy and trying to destroy the country first and figure out how to rebuild it later on. They've been very strategic. And what you think of what they're doing, is completely up to you. But the Democratic leadership is not the Washington version of Madmen, or their own political reality TV show. Unlike with the Republican leadership. 

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